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Mom and Caleb sat on that cold hospital bench late into the night. Dad eventually came and took Mom home.
Caleb seemed to have processed the reality of the situation. He was calm, methodical, handling all the arrangements for my funk
ral by himself.
He had always been a rational man, a staunch materialist. But now he started asking people strange, desperate questions.
When someone dies, does their soul go home?
Are they scared?
Does cremation hurt?
If they’re reborn, will they still have a bad heart?!
No one could give him the answers he wanted.
After a long silence, he abandoned the idea of having my heart surgically repaired before the cremation. But then he started asking about psychics, about mediums, about any way to bring a spirit back. He said he never got to say goodbye to the person he loved.
That there was so much he still needed to say.
He offered vast sums of money, but no one dared to take it. They questioned his sanity, afraid of the consequences if they failed to deliver on his impossible demands.
When Mom and Dad found out, they reprimanded him harshly. After that, he went back to acting normal.
Before the funeral, Finn was sent to Greenland, a land of perpetual winter, with strict orders never to return. My birth mother never
saw him again. She passed away from her illness shortly after.
It was snowing on the day of my burial, Family and friends stood quietly under black umbrellas, then slowly departed.
Only Caleb remained.
